{"id":36142,"date":"2023-10-29T19:56:58","date_gmt":"2023-10-29T17:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hifi-advice.com\/blog\/?p=36142"},"modified":"2024-07-02T11:22:30","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T09:22:30","slug":"new-mad-scientist-ranges-black-magic-ultra-and-black-magic-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hifi-advice.com\/blog\/review\/cables-reviews\/analog-interlink-reviews\/new-mad-scientist-ranges-black-magic-ultra-and-black-magic-gold\/","title":{"rendered":"Mad Scientist Black Magic Ultra and Black Magic Gold"},"content":{"rendered":"

Review sample supplied by Mad Scientist Audio<\/a><\/h4>\n

Retail price in US Dollars at the time of review (ex VAT):
\nBlack Magic Ultra Speaker Cables – From $2.890 for a 1-meter pair, $5.450 for a 3-meter pair (as reviewed)
\nBlack Magic Ultra Power Cable – From $999 for a 1-meter cable, $1.459 for a 2-meter cable (as reviewed)
\nBlack Magic Gold Balanced Analog Interlinks – From $1.299 for a 1-meter pair, $1.599 for a 1,5-meter pair (as reviewed)
\nBlack Magic Gold USB cable – From $1.299<\/h4>\n

As many long-time readers and Mad Scientist fans will recall, the company started with highly unusual tweaks made from 100% proprietary homemade materials. While these products proved successful and worked well, the decision has been made recently to transition to a cable-only company. As part of this, the Mad Scientist Audio website<\/a> has also been overhauled. Meanwhile, much of the experience gained while developing tweaks is still paying off, as it is part of many cable designs.<\/p>\n

Bob Prangnell, aka the Mad Scientist, is not one to ever sit still. He’s always looking to improve his recipes, and as long as I’ve known Mad Scientist products, the curve has only gone up. Of course, as materials become costlier and more exotic and the construction becomes more elaborate, the prices must go up. But rather than abandoning the original “bang for buck” philosophy, there are now multiple product tiers, with a range still founded on providing exceptional value and two additional ranges reaching ever more for the stars. All cables now carry the Black Magic moniker and are divided into three levels: Black Magic, Black Magic Ultra, and Black Magic Gold.<\/p>\n

Background on the Design Process<\/h3>\n

Bob Prangnell explains:<\/p>\n

“After the Black Magic loudspeaker cable design proved so successful, I started thinking about applying some of the design ideas to other cables. At the time, our top-of-the-line interconnect was the Flexible Carbon\/Graphene cable range. It occurred to me that with both the carbon\/graphene interconnects and the speaker cables, an important design objective was to reduce RF noise. The FCG interlink did this primarily by filtering it out. On the other hand, the new designs all use cancellation, rather than filtration, to remove noise. As it turned out, this is a superior-sounding technique. With filtering, it is very hard not to affect the music. This is why the new designs resolve so much better than the older ones.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“I thought I would try to design a budget interconnect using low-cost wire and plugs, but using these latest design ideas. To my surprise, I immediately encountered a problem: the first prototype sounded better than the most expensive interconnects in many ways. That was using cheap RCA plugs, so when I replaced those with some decent KLE plugs, it was most definitely better.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Thus started a development path that lasted 18 months. During this time, I had to adapt the original ideas for different cables, but now, these have been successfully applied to Interconnects, USB, Network, S\/PDIF, and power cords. The original ideas were further developed during this development process, and the original screening technique evolved into ‘Stage 2’.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Finally, the more advanced techniques were re-applied to the speaker cable design, producing the Ultra version.”<\/em><\/p>\n

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Product Levels<\/h3>\n

Black Magic<\/strong><\/p>\n

Black Magic cables use the same smart screening techniques used on the original speaker cable. For each type of cable, Mad Scientist had to adapt the techniques accordingly. Typically, Black Magic are budget-friendly cables that use affordable materials and original Stage 1 screening techniques but still sound highly musical due to the low RF noise. The speaker cables are technically a bit of an exception to this, but since they inhabit the same category, they also carry the same Black Magic badge.<\/p>\n

Black Magic Ultra<\/strong><\/p>\n

Black Magic Ultra cables use the best copper cable Mad Scientist could find and Stage 2 screening, which is a development of the original smart screen that is roughly twice as effective. While Black Magic provides the biggest bang for the buck, ULTRA represents an especially attractive balance between performance and cost. It’s good to note that the Gold Interlinks and USB Cables have a corresponding ULTRA variant that uses copper instead of silver\/gold wire and offers a large chunk of the Gold performance at a lower price.<\/p>\n

Black Magic Gold<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Gold moniker is reserved for the top-of-the-line cables that have the same basic design as the Ultra range but use costly silver\/gold alloy wires and additional mechanical damping to achieve enhanced mechanical properties.<\/p>\n

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Products Under Review<\/h3>\n

Under review are four brand-new products, all part of the Ultra- or Gold range. What I will cover are the following products:<\/p>\n